Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Ready to tune up your Swiftwater rescue skills this summer?On July 27th & 28th, the Community School, in partnership with White Otter Adventures, will be offering a Swiftwater Rescue Course, to help prepare private boaters, guides and trip leaders for a variety of river rescue and safety scenarios. With a mix of classroom instruction, hands-on practice, and exciting rescue scenarios, this class will aim to leave all the participants prepared for whatever difficulties they may face on the river. Even if you're an ultra-conservative and responsible boater (like we all strive to be), if you spend enough time floating Idaho's beautiful rivers, you will need these skills--whether for yourself or for another party of river users.Participants who attend the class will receive American Canoe Association Swiftwater Rescue Level 4 Certification. Here are the tentative details:Dates: 7/27-7/28, 2018Time: 8 AM - 5 PMLocation: Sunbeam, IDCost: $195 per participant
Prerequisites: Must be 16 years old, in good health and overall fitness, possess solid swimming ability, and be comfortable swimming in moving current during river drills.
Course Capacity: 15 participants
Instructor: Elliot Jacobs, SWR Level IV, ACA Whitewater Instructor
Contact: Elliot Jacobs, ejacobs@communityschool.org
Minimum Gear Requirements (email Elliot if any of this is a problem; we have some gear that we can loan out):

Clothing suitable for extended swimming in cold water (wetsuit or drysuit)

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

You know those days when you wake up and immediately can tell that it's just not gonna work out for you? Well Dec. 26th was one of those days for sure. Cole, Cooper, Will, Linea (a SVSEF girl shredder) and I planned a day backcountry ski adventure up at Galena to be pretty straight forward and mellow. Leave from Cole's house at 9:30, ski for a couple of hours and get back to town around 2. It was our day off and we didn't want to wreck our selves. However, once I arrived at Cole's house I realized I had forgotten my liners, skins and gloves. Classic noob mistake. So I go back home, grab my gear and we are off a mere 45 minutes late. Not to bad... should be fine... day should get better from here... But to bad the junk show-ing was just about to begin. Once we got to Avi bowl we dropped Coops car off and piled into my car and headed to the top of Galena. Once up there we proceded to put on our gear until I heard Cole say, "Ben, can you unlock the car?". Yeah sure Cole, one second, let me just grab my keys... which were, oh no... in my center consul. So there we are, on the top of Galena, with a locked car, no keys and all of Cole's backcountry gear in my car. After about 10 minutes of discussing whether or not I should smash my window we decided to have Cole ski down to Cooper's car on the side of the road and hang out while we take a few "quick runs". So after this "minor" mishap we were off. At that point, the only thing that went according to plan was our beacon check. So by that time, my junkshow points were quickly rising above 5, Will had a few for his almost broken skins and Linea had none and Cooper was killen it, just laughing away at this classic situation. As our touring day continued of course we ran into some minor problems. Will face planted off a 20 foot cliff onto a wind-drift after he neglected to scope his landing. I decided to get blisters, Cole didn't even get to ski, and Linea got her skins all snowy. If somebody wrote a book about things not to do when approaching a backcountry ski day, this would be it. On the bright side, we did everything correct regarding backcountry awareness and actual skiing, but for some reason, things just weren't working out for us otherwise. Once we finally got home, I went to my dad's office where my brother, Tim Kanellitsas, had brought the spare keys for my truck. So then again, we were off back to Galena at around 3:30. But could you guess what happened then?!?!? Pretty obvious, once we got to the top of Galena for a third time the spare keys didn't work... at all... Not even the false hope of them working with the "half-in/no turn" type of key. Long story short. We were a complete junk show from the start, skiing was great, gear worked fine, finally got my car at around 6pm and made it out alive with some pretty great memories and epic laughs.